A new lease on life: UF Health neurosurgeon removed brain tumor from pregnant woman

Hope Ray is passionate about children, so much that she’s been taking courses in early childhood education to become a preschool teacher.

She desires the classroom setting – a world filled with colors, shapes, numbers and other tools youngsters need during their formative years. Hope livens up when talking about her educational dreams. What makes those dreams even more noteworthy is the fact that they were at risk of being suddenly snatched away.

Hope, a 22-year-old Valdosta, Georgia, resident, was diagnosed with a brain tumor last year, when she was pregnant with her second child. But thanks to a successful high-risk operation at UF Health Jacksonville, Hope has a new lease on life, along with a healthy baby girl to enjoy.

Unexplainable pain

Hope and her husband, Kyle, live on Moody Air Force Base, where he works as a military police officer and she stays home to take care of their two daughters – Ellyanna, who’s almost 2, and Emmylyn, who was born in January.

Flash back to June 2013. Hope, two months pregnant with Emmylyn (“Emmy”), began experiencing severe headaches. Nonstop throbbing and pain became part of her daily experience. She felt ill all the time. Contrary to what her doctor said, she believed those effects weren’t just pregnancy-related.

“I just had this feeling something wasn’t right,” she said.

Hope, who’s been blind in her right eye since birth, started to lose vision in the left eye. A neurologist determined that her optic nerve was swollen. All the while, the headaches intensified. The pain was excruciating. She said it felt like somebody was inside her skull squeezing her brain.

An MRI in September revealed that Hope had a grape-sized tumor in the middle of her brain. She was about five months pregnant at the time.

Four medical centers in South Georgia and North Florida wouldn’t operate on Hope because of the high-risk nature of the procedure. She was referred to UF Health Jacksonville, where neurosurgeon Daryoush Tavanaiepour, MD, removed the tumor less than a week after the diagnosis.

A precise operation

Tavanaiepour, a University of Florida assistant professor and associate chair of neurosurgery, said the benign tumor was inhibiting the circulation of fluid in the brain. The buildup of fluid caused the pressure and constant pain Hope was feeling, as well as the left eye vision problems.

He said the tumor’s location, not its size, was an issue. It was in the center of the brain, in the third ventricle, which Tavanaiepour said is one of the deepest areas a neurosurgeon can probe. He believes she was likely born with the tumor.

“Normally, we would wait until her baby is born and then operate,” he said. “But in this case, the pressure in her head was getting dangerously high and her vision was deteriorating. Also, operating then would allow her to have a safe delivery.”

After making an incision on the top of Hope’s head, Tavanaiepour used neuronavigation (think GPS for the brain) technology, an operating microscope and state-of-the-art micro-instruments to operate. The tumor, also defined as a colloid cyst, was stuck to a vein. He had to proceed with extreme caution and precision because a slight move in any direction could have affected Hope’s memory, caused a stroke or even rendered her brain dead.

“There was no room for error,” he said. “We were fighting for two lives.”

The operation, which took about seven hours, concluded without any complications.

A few weeks later, Tavanaiepour performed a second operation to install a permanent shunt to drain fluid that continues to build up. The shunt takes the fluid from the brain down to Hope’s chest, where it’s absorbed and emptied into her body. Thoracic surgeons at UF Health Jacksonville assisted with that procedure.

“It was scary,” Kyle said, recalling the operations his wife had to undergo. “We didn’t know what to expect.”

Welcoming Emmy

After undergoing two successful operations, Hope and Kyle could focus solely on the pregnancy. They returned to UF Health Jacksonville, where Hope gave birth to Emmy via C-section in late January. That option was taken because the pushing required during a conventional delivery would have put too much pressure on Hope’s head.

A worst-case scenario is that Hope would have gone into a coma and died. Emmy would have been at risk, too. However, the C-section resulted in a safe delivery.

“Her coming out, and to hear that first cry, was great,” Kyle said.

Hope calls Emmy their miracle baby. Considering all of the medications Hope was taking and the complicated operations, the family says it’s a blessing that their infant is not only alive, but is healthy and progressing quite well.

And Hope is doing much better these days. She has occasional headaches, but that’s nothing compared to the extreme pain she experienced before the operation. She and Kyle thank Tavanaiepour for his expertise in saving her life, as well as his personal care and concern.

“He went above and beyond,” Kyle said. “He was comforting and very professional.”

Tavanaiepour was confident her initial operation would turn out well, although he admits he was cautious. In his research, he only found two cases worldwide in which a pregnant woman with a colloid cyst went untreated. In each case, the woman died.

He’s glad Hope was correctly diagnosed and underwent successful surgery, which allowed vision in her left eye to return to normal.

“This is one of the most complex surgeries there is. The stakes were high,” Tavanaiepour said. “People may not know that we’re doing these kinds of operations all the time at UF Health Jacksonville. We’re getting patients through, not just with effective surgery, but also with compassionate care.”

Looking ahead

Hope sports a short haircut these days. Her black hair is styled in a way that masks the surgical scars. The shunt isn’t noticeable either. A stranger would have no idea what she has endured just by looking at her.

Instead of nonstop body aches, multiple doctor visits and surgery preparation, Hope now focuses her attention on her family, as well as her goals and passions.

Dancing is a long-lived hobby Hope wants to rekindle. And she remains determined to pursue a teaching career. Thanks to Tavanaiepour and others at UF Health Jacksonville, she’ll be able to chase her dream of guiding tomorrow’s youth.

“I’ve always loved working with kids,” Hope said. “Whoever teaches them at that age is forever shaping their future.”

If anyone knows how precious the future is, it’s Hope.